The topic list may look a little small this week, but trust me — BlizzCon was pretty big, and it gets a lot of talk in this week’s episode. Download, enjoy, Digg, robble robble robble. And, just to remind everyone, the original cast of the CGW/GFW Radio podcast will be attending this year’s Penny Arcade Expo, and we’ll be holding a reunion panel on Saturday, September 5, at 8:30 PM (check here for full PAX schedule details). My good buddy Anthony Gallegos and I are also planning on having a joint GameSpy/Geekbox/Rebel FM listener meet-up at the Sheraton on the evening of September 4, and I’ll have more details on that in next week’s post.

Karen Chu and Mike Cruz are out for this week’s episode, so 1UP.com’s Justin Haywald and Jade Kraus make another glorious guest appearance. It’s the last episode before BlizzCon 2009; Karen and I will be attending for both days (August 21 and 22), so feel free to say hello if you see us wandering around in a daze. C’mon, World of Warcraft expansion!

Here’s our latest episode. Special awesome bonus: Check out the amazing poster artwork for GFW Radio’s upcoming reunion panel at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo. This sweet art comes from the inimitable Bill Mudron, who you may remember from his illustration work on the last few issues of EGM. I can’t wait to see how it looks in physical poster form — man, PAX can’t get here fast enough! Incidentally, for those who are wondering about the exact timing of the panel, you can brows the full panel schedule at the PAX website. Our panel runs from 8:30-9:30 PM (although we might go a little bit longer, since no one’s using the room after us…) on Saturday, September 5. If you’re attending the expo, make sure you come say hi!

In addition to new regular co-host Mike Cruz, we’ve got a couple of extra special guests: Kevin Kmetz and Mark Thornton of California Bay Area band God of Shamisen. Kmetz is a master of the titular instrument (the fretless Japanese lute — you probably know what it is, even if you don’t know the name), and the band incorporates progressive rock and metal into their music for an utterly unique sound all around. And they’re big geeks, too — as you’ll discover when you hear the awesome Final Fantasy Attack medley the closes this week’s episode out. You can find out more at the God of Shamisen website linked above, and I’ve also added their first album — Dragon String Attack — to my Amazon widget in the sidebar. Rock!

This week’s episode is a long one, guest-starring recurring cast member Jade Kraus and 1UP.com writer Justin Haywald (my old reviews intern, and one cool dude). The original cast returns next week for what, alas, will be Greg Ford’s farewell episode, as he’s moving out of state for further college education. Don’t forget to Digg/review this episode, and definitely tune in next week as we see Greg off!

It’s another new episode — and, unfortunately, Greg Ford’s next-to-last one! He’s out on vacation next week, but after the following week’s episode, Greg’s leaving us (and California) to pursue further education. We’ll definitely miss him!